unnecessary questions in my dealings with the Russian police, and I had good reason, moreover, to say as little as possible about Siberia. I obtained the "formal letter" from Mr. Wurts, brought it to the passport bureau, declared that I was not a Jew, signed my name at the bottom of sundry blanks, disbursed various small sums for stamps, sealing-wax, and paper, paid an official for showing me what to do, received a document which I was directed to take to the police-station of the precinct in which I resided, brought back from there another document addressed to the passport bureau, and finally, after four days of going back and forth from one circumlocution office to another, received a little book, about as big as a religious tract, which certified that there was no objection, on the part of anybody, to my leaving the Empire. Three days later I was in London.
It was my intention merely to write a full report from there to the editor of The Century Magazine, and then return to European Russia and continue my investigation; but my companion, Mr. Frost, was taken dangerously ill as a result of the tremendous mental and physical strain of our Siberian experience, and I could not leave him for almost a month. He had borne the extraordinary hardships and privations of our eight-thousand-mile ride through Siberia with heroic fortitude and without a single murmur of complaint; but his strength had given way at last, chiefly as the result of nervous excitement and prolonged insomnia. He recovered slowly, but on the 13th of April he was strong enough to sail for the United States, and on the 16th I took out a new passport and returned with my wife to St. Petersburg. I spent four months in making the acquaintance of Russian liberals, revolutionists, and officials in St. Petersburg, Tver, Moscow, Nízhni Nóvgorod, and Kazán; visited the friends and acquaintances of many of the political exiles whom I had met in Siberia and delivered the letters that I had for them;
